ris 8.5 X 18 new trailer build 11/1/17

[flboy]

My 18*7 with 2' V fully loaded with 64 gallons of water, provisions, and motorcycle is about 6,000 lbs. My TV is a F150 extended cab 4WD with 5.0L V8. It pulls it without a hesitation. In the Mountains on the East Coast, it does fine, but transmission temp rises some on the high end of normal. In any case, gas milage drops by 50% on flat ground.

The gearing on your TV makes a difference. My truck says it is good to tow up to 9,200 lbs. with my tow package. You should be fine from engine size perspective, but check the gearing.

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[hankaye]

ris, Howdy;

You should be able to find those specs. in the owner's manual, or online
if you've misplaced the paper one.

hank

[McDave]

Those Silverado 1500s are rated to tow 11,000. But, and this is a big but, that includes everything besides truck and driver. Passengers, fuel, sunblock, Jameson and cigars all add towards that that number. Not to mention those numbers are derived under optimal brand new controlled conditions. Real world conditions are not optimal, ever. So keep the big number in the back of your head and work towards less. Then just don't horsewhip it, your truck is your friend. If you gotta slow down going uphill, just haul ass going down. The amount of time saved by going 80 mph vs 60 mph is negligible. Slow and steady wins the race, almost every time. Plus, it's not the destination that matters, it's the journey. You know that...
I said big but. Ha!

McDave

[ris]

Thanks for the info. Finally found a table online that said silverado 1500 can pull up to 6900 lbs. We have the kitchen cabinets finished with doors and drawers installed. Will post pics after we paint them.
We have installed a suburban gas/elect. water heater. It is vented out the driver side behind the wheels.


Exterior view


We have also installed 4 Trojan 105s. They are six volt batteries. We hooked them up in series parallel. This gives us 450 amp hours at 12 volts. You are supposed to keep the batteries above 50% so you have 225 amps of usable power without damaging your batteries. We moved these batteries from our boat.


We have a sterling power smart charger for the batteries. We moved this charger from our boat. We are also installing a new battery to battery charger from sterling power to charge the batteries while we drive. The red 2 way switch below the charger is so we can switch from the a/c charger to the battery to battery charger. The red on/off switch below the charger to the right simply turns all the 12 volt power off to the trailer. The fuse panel to the right of the charger is for all the circuits in the trailer.


A view of the entire 12 volt system except for the battery to battery charger which will be hooked up below the other charger. The line just dangling from the 2 way switch will connect to the Battery to Battery charger.


We hope to finish by 16 of Apr.

Richard

[flboy]

It is looking good! I like those batteries. I need to upgrade mine before I hit the road for a few months next year and want to get 4 6VDC golf cart batteries. What would 4 of those Trojans cost?

[ris]

I bought them from battery plus and they were around $400 with tax for the 4 batteries. That was in 2016. I know other boaters that have had these batteries for 6 to 8 years with daily use. You just need to check the water once a month and add distilled water. Also try to keep them above 55% charge. We did put 2, 1/2 inch mats under the batteries to cushion them from bouncing down the road. When you buy 2 or 4 batteries try to get the same lot number. A new battery with a old battery will cause the new battery to age much faster. By the way our boat is a MacGregor 26X sailboat but we took the mast off and use it as a power boat. It has a great cabin but it is small. This cargo trailer has loads of stand up room in comparison. The boat was 26 feet long but the actual usable cabin space was about 6' wide and counting the bed was about 12 feet long. You of course have a large storage area about 2.5 feet high, 8 feet long and 6 feet wide. You also have a cockpit where you sit, lounge and drive from.

Richard

[ris]

We put our Maxxair fan on the passenger side barn door. We put the 14 X 14 hole in perfect alignment with the window on the other door but the fan sits higher above the hole so it looks like we did not mount them even. With the fan on the barn door and the window in the utility wall not in direct alignment, the fan noise in the trailer living area is very low. And the fan is quit anyway.


We also got our sterling power battery to battery charger installed. We had to run a #6 wire from the truck battery to the back of the truck. Also a wire from the trailer tongue to the rear of the trailer where the charger is located. We used 50 amp quick connects that folks use on their jeep and truck winches to hook the trailer line to the truck line. We put the wire in 1 inch flexible conduit just to be safe. The one bonus was that their was 1 inch holes already in the frame right where we needed them. They are up next to the floor of the trailer. We did have to enlarge them by 1/8".


The truck end of the connection


A picture of the conduit and wire in the utility room where it comes through the floor and up to the charger. Also a close up of the charger. This charger is capable of 30 amps at 12 volts. I have no idea how this thing works but it is hooked to our truck battery. We had out battery bank down to 90% charge and the truck just idling puts in 13.5 volts to the battery bank. It somehow fools the alternator into thinking the truck battery is low on charge. At least I think that is how it works. I am sure some others like flboy could look into this thing and understand it better. My reason for doing this is I wanted the truck to charge the batteries as we travel. I am sure there are cheaper ways to do this but this is a run the wire and hook it up, simple process.




I think we will finish this coming week. Will post some pics of the finished trailer.

Richard

[featherliteCT1]

I read about that Sterling DC to DC charger and I am impressed with the specs ... see
http://www.sterling-power-usa.com/Sterl ... arger.aspx

I hope that after you have had a chance to charge your batteries a few times that you will report back how it performs for you.

Nice work!

[ris]

featherlight we are going to start our trip in about 10 days. We will for sure let you know how this charger performs its job. Our regular charger is also a sterling power charger and we really like it and have had no problems with it over the last 2 years.

Richard

[flboy]

I have never really looked into the truck to trailer charging like that so I am not sure of the electronics behind it. My guess is it is using some DC to DC conversion to maintain whatever charge voltage it needs for the RV batteries. Then the charger really is just running off your truck battery and the alternator just keeps charging the truck battery as it sees the draw. It probably also has all the necessary protections to isolate the starter battery and alternator from any shorts on the RV side and etc. Also, probably senses when the alternator is not outputting (truck off) and either limits the charge or halts it all together to protect the truck battery from being run down. A very neat idea and hence the simple hook up.

As I understand it, those chargers do work extremely well. I am not sure what they cost, but never a bad idea to have a few methods to charge the batteries. As I always say, solar works less than half the time. They don't work well at night or on cloudy days.

[ris]

Don the Battery to Battery Charge was about $290. We will post how well it does on our trip. Today we installed the Allure Flooring vinyl planks in the trailer. All you need is a razor or box knife and a tape measure to put this stuff down. It sticks to itself and is very easy to put down. Here are a couple of pics.


This pic is with my back to the bed looking forward to the front of the trailer.


Richard

[featherliteCT1]

Beautiful!

[flboy]

Wow.. looking really nice!

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[ris]

We leave on our travels on Wed. Weighed the trailer with everything in it but some of the clothes and the propane lines. 5674 lbs. Tongue weight is 580 lbs. That means we have right at 10% of the trailer weight on the tongue. Last Friday we had a transmission cooler installed that was at least twice as big as the one that came on the truck also changed the fluid and put in new filter. Also new struts and shocks installed. The build including the truck work and the trailer price is now at 14,000. About 3 thousand over my starting estimate. Glad we had the extra money. When you go over 60 yrs old you should be out of the saving mode and into the spending your kids inheritance mode. Start saving early, buy Vanguard Index Funds and let it compound over the years. Never spend your retirement money until you quit working no matter how bad you need it. Never made more than $35000 with wife and two chillins. Just live within your means. It paid off for us.

Richard

[ris]

Trailer build 95% complete. Here are some quick pics. We are leaving tomorrow.
Looking forward from bed. Only thing missing is the curtain between living area and bathroom.


Standing in bathroom looking toward rear of trailer


In bathroom looking toward driver side


In bathroom looking toward passenger side


Picture of bathroom sink and composting toilet.
gallery/image.php?album_id=4751&image_id=153938

Kitchen cabinets


Passenger side of trailer with entry door


We will be in the Pensacola area for a few weeks starting next week. Helping our son work on his 1st house. It is a fixer upper.

Richard